Monday, February 16, 2015

SF Beer Week 2015

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

SF Beer Week has come upon us!!! Wait… that sounded weird… this past week was SF Beer Week… and there were HUNDREDS of events going on all over the Bay Area. However, because I’m not independently wealthy & have to work for a living, I didn’t get to just go from place to place experiencing drunkenness through craft beer… but Izzy & I did hold our own… and here’s how…

First, I want to show a wonderful piece

of art that Izzy made for me... a watercolor

of my favorite dinosaur, Anklyosaurus

Saturday, February 7th – We brewed a batch of my award-winning “PentaceraHops” IPA at my house (the Batcave) with my girlfriend Izzy & her aunts, while one of Izzy’s friends’ husband videotapes us for his series of articles on Homebrewing… yes, I’ll be a beer celebrity soon enough… but only later did I find out that he’s actually a Walter Kronkite Award winning journalist. Yeah… so it’s legit… not just a weird guy with a camera. Basically this was a pretty simple partial mash recipe that we’ve done before (with a few tweaks to the hops to meet what we had available) but here are some pictures…

Sunday, February 8th – Rainy day sampling of fine beers from our collection including Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine & Narwhal Imperial Stout from last year, and other high octane beers. Other than that… nothing much… pretty relaxing… watched movies (more to come later)

Monday, February 9th – We had lunch at Marin Brewing on the way out to Izzy’s house… had a sampler of their beers on tap… took a Dopple Weizen home with us… enjoyed one of their little pizzas & some buffalo wings… good times…

That night, Izzy & I had a wonderful five-star dinner with beer pairings at Elevation 66 Brewery in El Cerrito with Big Ben, Li’l John & others… here are some pictures of the food…

… and during that wonderful time, we discussed a great many things… including the mysterious art of Beer Lacing… which apparently is when you look into the residual head on a beer glass… and see shapes or figures, not unlike gazing into the clouds on a summer’s day. Here are a few that I found in my beverages… and yes, if you thought that fancy ice pictures during brews was kind of odd… this may be a repeating thing… what do you see?

Tuesday & Wednesday, I pretty much spent the evenings catching up on house work & playing my new PS4 with NBA 2K15 and starting MyCareer mode in this basketball game. You may remember in the 2K13 edition that I was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, led them to a few championships, then signed as a free agent with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Well… this time, I wasn’t drafted (GASP!!!) so I had to work my way up through ten-day contracts with the New Orleans Pelicans, then get signed for the rest of the year… and we won the championship!!! YAY!!! That’s right, the Pelicans won an NBA title!!! Then it was time for me to hit free agency… so I signed a maximum contract… with the Los Angeles Clippers. Yup… CP3, Blake Griffin, DeAndre “Putback and/or Alley-Oop” Jordan, Coach Doc Rivers & his son Austin riding the bench, and me leading the way on a max contract. Boom! There’s also a general manager, league mode, etc. but yeah, it’s like most basketball games from the past 25 years… with better graphics, some odd and fairly repetitive commentary, some cool dunks… but yeah, mostly the same stuff. Still… I like it because there’s usually some great strategy involved… and I heart basketball. Yippee! Check it out if you like those games…

Thursday, February 12th– After work, I headed over to the Hops for Housing Charity Event, where a lot of the major local homebrew players and microbreweries-to-be volunteer some of their exquisite beverages for a modest admission donation that goes towards the SF Tenants Union who have been fighting for the rights of tenants and for the preservation of affordable housing in San Francisco (so obviously they’ve been either dropping the ball or are severely underfunded since this place is the most expensive f**king city in America now). Anyway, the event was held at BeatBox SF here in the city, and it was a nice little space that… frankly got packed pretty quickly, but the beer was great & the company was great too with plenty of SF Homebrewers Guild members in attendance. Here are some pictures…

My only complaint was the music… not necessarily that it was dance music… I’m like whatever, it’s background… but the fact that it was TOO F**KING LOUD!!! I’m not an old man or anything either, everybody at the event agrees with me… or I’m pretty sure that’s what they were saying… they kept covering their ears like they knew what I was talking about… anyway, great event! Hope to go to it next year… and maybe I’ll offer my DJ services to run the music too. I got a few mixes on my iPod I can pop in.

Also, wanna see what I got Izzy for Valentine's?

...but she had to one up me with this handmade card...

Saturday, February 14th –Valentine’s Day – For a romantic Valentine's Day, I took Izzy to a luncheon at the world famous Anchor Brewing as they were having a celebrating for the California Homebrewing Club of the Year - The Maltose Falcons, based out of Los Angeles. Congratulations to them... and we're coming for ya next year. Here are some pictures of the area and some great barbecue...

Afterwards, I spoiled her with a Taco Bell 12 Pack... cuz I'm a f**king boss... she loved it...

Sunday, February 15th – Finish off the “week” with a Homebrew Share sponsored by the guild that I’m on the board for at Pi Bar in the Mission… and we also raffled off some prizes & announced our Homebrewer of the Year...

Afterwards, we also stopped by Rare Barrel for the first time. The Rare Barrel is a brewery in Berkeley that specializes in barrel aging and sour beers... which is an interesting & acquired taste for most beer drinkers... but if you're ever in Berkeley, check them out...

Monday, February 16th - President's Day - We celebrated this day off work with bottling our Red Ale... and kind of being the unofficial end of SF Beer Week... but here are some pictures of the process... and the ale is delicious...

Anyway, next year, we may hafta REALLY go into SF Beer Week (if we can get over the costs) but beer week is great for getting access to a lot of different special kinds & expanding knowledge of the craft of beer... but then again, it really helps when people are interested in it too... but hey, if you're willing to learn, I'm willing to teach. Have a great week everybody!!!